Monday, March 26, 2012

Earlier this month, James Cameron announced his plans to go on the first human dive in 52 years to the ocean's deepest spot, a place nearly seven miles down in the western Pacific.

He has recently just returned and reports no sea monsters, no giant squids and no strange life. Just tiny amphipods--tiny shrimp-like creatures floating across a featureless dark emptiness.

“It was very lunar, a very desolate place,” James Cameron said, upon his return on Monday to a news conference. He says that while "we'd all like to think there are giant squid and sea monsters down there" this trip, he saw nothing larger than an inch across.

However, this will not stop him as he says it is only the beginning. The area he is looking to explore is 50 times larger than the Grand Canyon.

National Geographic, which sponsored the trip, reported that Cameron began his dive on Sunday at 3:15 p.m., landed on the bottom at 5:52 p.m. and was back at the surface at 10 p.m.

“You’re in total darkness for most of the dive,” Mr. Cameron said. “It’s a completely alien world.”

Noise pollution is affecting our forests. A few years ago, it was discovered that in areas where there was a lot of human-made noise, a species of hummingbird would increase in population, while another species of jay would decrease in population.

These same researchers have found where human-made noise is heavy, there will be more flowers but fewer trees.

According to Clinton D. Francis, an evolutionary ecologist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, this is a domino effect. The pine trees that were seen less and less relied upon the scrub jays to spread their seeds. The black-chinned hummingbird specifically searches out areas where there is a lot of noise and no jays because these birds eat their eggs and nestlings.

On another note, bringing back the BP Oil Spill that happened April 2010, scientists say they have definitively linked damage to deep-sea corals in the Gulf to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill. This coral community that was once vibrant with rich hues is now dull and brown, and according to scientists, it's because of the oil spill. The oil found on the corals matched the oil that was spilled back in April 2010, turning half a football field of corals into a graveyard.